


Cost

by SharpestRose



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-29
Updated: 2011-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-20 20:23:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the price he makes himself pay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cost

Always -- or, at least, whenever possible -- Charles rides their deaths down to the bitter dregs.

It's the price he makes himself pay. It's a bargain with his own conscience, the desperate trade off: _please, please, I will look at the hurt clear-eyed. I will feel every moment of their fear and horror. I will stay until the last dim flickers of all they are vanish into nothing. Please, I promise. Please let it be enough._

Let the chorus of terrified minds on destroyed and sinking ships, the minds striving for air, let their ghosts inside his head be enough to earn him the sight of the new, easier smiles on Raven's face.

Let the silent pleas to God from generals and politicians hiding in bunkers which buckle and groan down around them, as if the metal girders themselves have turned traitor, let their memories haunting Charles as he lies awake at night be sufficient to afford him the warmth of Erik beside him.

Erik sleeps with quiet, even breaths, even as a nightmare roils darkly inside his dreaming head. Instinctively, Charles touches fingertips to his own temple and coaxes lightness to the fore: a smile, candles, chessboards and breakfasts and skin. Erik shifts without waking, throwing an arm across Charles' chest, comforted for the moment.

This is why Charles forces himself to swallow down the poison fruits of all their choices. Erik has his revenge to drive him; Raven has her pride. And because Charles loves them, loves them too much to be anywhere but with them, he will carry the echo of every martyr that they make. He will hold a record in his heart of every atrocity they cause.

And he will pretend that this alone is a fair price for all he could not give away.


End file.
